697 Quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

[she] confessed her preference for trousers; every active woman likes low heels and sturdy materials. The significance of woman's attire is evident: it is decoration, and to be decorated means to be offered.

What an odd thing a diary is: the things you omit are more important than those you put in.

Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.

One always has to wait until the sugar melts, the memory dies, the wound scars over, the sun sets, the unhappiness lifts and fades away.

The "evil" which he had made his refuge vanished when crime was justified by virtue.

It is because I reject lies and running away that I am accused of pessimism; but this rejection implies hope — the hope that truth may be of use. And this is a more optimistic attitude than the choice of indifference, ignorance or sham.

I was still keenly aware as in my childhood of the inexplicable nature of my presence here on earth; where had I come from here; where was I going? I often thought about these things with a kind of stupefied horror and used to fill my diary with long self-communings

En effet, à côté de la prétention de tout individu à s'affirmer comme sujet, qui est une prétention éthique, il y a aussi en lui la tentation de fuir sa libertê et de se constituer en chose: c'est un chemin néfaste car passif, aliené, perdu, il est alors la proie se volontés étrangères, coupé de sa transcendance, frustré de tout valeur. Mais c'est un chemin facile: on évite ainsi l'angoisse et la tension de l'existence authentiquement assumée.

Le nihiliste a raison de penser que le monde no possède aucune justification et que lui-même n'est rien; mais il oublie qu'il lui appartient de justifier le monde et de se faire exister valablement.